Chicago teachers uncomfortable with a tentative contract offer decided Sunday to remain on strike, insisting they needed more time to consider whether to end an acrimonious standoff with Mayor Rahm Emanuel that will keep 350,000 students out of class for at least a few more days.

Emanuel fired back Sunday night by instructing city attorneys to seek a court order forcing Chicago Teachers Union members back into the classroom. "This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children," he said.

Meeting a week after beginning the city's first teachers strike in 25 years, the union's 800-member House of Delegates didn't hold a planned vote on whether to suspend the strike. They had received a summary of a proposed settlement worked out over the weekend with officials from the nation's third-largest school district.

Presented with a choice on whether to end talks that union President Karen Lewis had at one point called "a fight for the very soul of public education," the union's members told their leaders they feel rushed. She said they wanted more time to talk about a contract that would base teacher evaluations in part on how well students succeed and whether laid-off teachers would have first chance at open jobs in the district.

The union will meet again Tuesday, after the end of the Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. That timeline, however, means the soonest classes could resume would be Wednesday.

"Another week would be murder. I don't think it's right," said Beatriz Fierro, the mother of a fifth-grader.

Alternatives sought

But other parents continued to stand with the teachers.

"As much as we want our kids back in school, teachers need to make sure they have dotted all their I's and crossed their T's," said Becky Malone, mother of a second-grader and a fourth-grader.

City officials said 147 schools staffed with nonunion workers and central office employees will be open Monday for students who are dependent on school-provided meals.

But in a statement, Emanuel was typically blunt. He accused the union of using the city's students as "pawns in an internal dispute." He said the strike was illegal because it endangers the health and safety of students and concerned issues that state law says cannot be grounds for a work stoppage.

The walkout, the first for a major American city in at least six years, canceled classes for students who just returned from summer vacation and forced tens of thousands of parents to find alternatives for idle children, including many whose neighborhoods have been racked by gang violence in recent months.

With an average salary of $76,000, Chicago teachers are among the highest paid in the nation. The contract outline calls for annual raises, but it doesn't restore a 4 percent raise that was rescinded by the mayor last year.

Emanuel, who did not personally negotiate the deal but monitored the talks through aides, has pushed hard for a contract that includes basing evaluations in part on student performance. The union contends such a system is unfair because it does not take into account outside factors that affect student performance such as poverty, violence and homelessness.

Months of tense talks

The union also pushed for a policy to give laid-off teachers first dibs on open jobs anywhere in the district, which the city said would keep principals from hiring the teachers they thought best qualified for the position.

The teachers walked out Sept. 10 after months of tense contract talks that for a time appeared to be headed toward a peaceful resolution.

Emanuel and the union agreed in July on a deal to implement a longer school day with a plan to hire back 477 teachers who had been laid off rather than pay regular teachers more to work longer hours. That raised hopes the contract would be settled before the start of fall classes, but bargaining stalled on other issues.